


Lucky Mistakes

by SilentUnicornSpeaks



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, basically if Jack and Rhys went to the same college, but like, space college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6919564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentUnicornSpeaks/pseuds/SilentUnicornSpeaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack getting mistaken for his twin Timothy is usually a bad thing, but today's a special case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky Mistakes

“Hey, Tim, you would not believe the day I’ve had!” A tall, lanky someone slid into the seat across from Jack, casually shoving some of Jack’s textbooks to the side. Jack, already pissed off by the essay topic he had to write, didn’t have time for this.

“Look, pumpkin, I’m not--” The words died as he glanced up at the intruder. Blue and green mismatched eyes met brown and blue, watching him with raised eyebrows underneath some frankly perfectly coiffed hair. The stranger’s hands were cupped under his chin, one long-fingered and pale, the other square, blocky, and mechanical. He wore a black collared shirt with the top buttons opened, a circular black tattoo peeking out above a larger, mostly-hidden blue design. The guy’s lips quirked up in a smile, and Jack knew he was a goner.

“Pumpkin, huh? That’s new. Rhys getting too hard to say?” The guy’s smirk faltered a little at Jack’s staring. “Uh, you okay, Tim?”

Jack swallowed, hard. “Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m just- I’m just,” he floundered for a moment, “uh, this essay is kicking my ass, and I’m just, like, super busy.”

Rhys reached out and, without a by-your-leave, dragged Jack’s laptop around to peer at the screen. Jack moved too slowly to stop him, but when he saw the screen, Rhys only grinned.

“’The Bare Essentials: Can Nudity and Fine Dining Co-Exist’.” He raised his eyebrows again. “The ‘e’ in ‘exist’ should be lowercase, by the way.”

“It’s a better title than the actual topic,” Jack grumbled, pulling his laptop away. “Nobody cares about the failed robotic experiments of the twenty-third century.”

“Well, isn’t it said that we learn from our mistakes?” Rhys countered.

Jack looked up sharply to see an innocent grin lurking at the corners of Rhys’ carefully maintained straight face. “Oh, that’s how it is, huh? Not enough Tassiter’s assigned me a dumbass topic, you’re gonna challenge me on it? Hasn’t the universe punished me enough?” He tried for nonchalance, but could feel his own smile fighting to show. Rhys shrugged.

“Really, though, most of science is propelled by failure. Isn’t knowing what not to do just as important as knowing what to do?”

“It would be,” Jack said, pulling out the paper Tassiter had assigned him and sliding it over to him, “if the failure taught us anything other than ‘uh, maybe don’t commit genocide’.” Rhys looked over the details of the topic, pursing his lips. Jack had been struggling to come up with anything longer than ‘uh, maybe don’t commit genocide’ for over an hour.

Rhys snorted loudly. “You’ve got to defend the experiments? What the hell, only a psychopath would defend this crap! There’s literally nothing here to defend!”

“Exactly!” Jack leaned back in his chair and slammed the laptop shut. He studied the lanky stranger across from him as Rhys studied the paper, occasionally making small sounds of dismay and disapproval. He was definitely cute, Jack would admit. Hitting all the right buttons, too, with his neat hair and soft lips he was currently biting, and the tats, and his righteous anger coming down on Jack’s side… Jack couldn’t lie, he wanted to get to know the guy better. Only snag was, Rhys still thought he was Timothy. Jack was used to getting mixed up with his twin, and normally it straddled the line between ‘irritating’ and ‘highly amusing’, but today it looked like luck. Jack made his decision.

“Hey, uh, Rhys, you eaten lunch yet?”

**Author's Note:**

> Just trying to practice writing, and I recently got super into this ship, so here you go!


End file.
